Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator

FUSION: A unique event for innovative leaders

Harvard’s FUSION symposium integrates perspectives from science and business to explore the promise of an emerging field. This annual, invite-only event brings together entrepreneurs, scientists, business leaders, investors, and innovators for an afternoon of exploration and networking. The FUSION symposium is jointly hosted by the Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator (a program of Harvard University's Office of Technology Development) and by the Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Science Entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School.

The next FUSION symposium will be held in February 2019 on the Science and Business of Aging. Below, we recap the October 2017 symposium on the Science and Business of Combating Antibiotic Resistance.

This FUSION event is premised on the idea that leaders in science and business can each achieve more when they work together.

Nitin Nohria

Dean of Harvard Business School

2017 RECAP

The Science and Business of Combating Antibiotic Resistance

KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Anthony S. Fauci

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Fauci has advised five U.S. presidents and oversees an extensive research portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established and emerging infectious diseases.

“Antimicrobial Resistance: A Current and Emerging Threat.”

PANEL DISCUSSION: THE SCIENCE

Advancing Antimicrobial Research Today

What must we do to avoid a "post-antibiotic era"? What research strategies are leading in the development of new antimicrobial therapies today?

How many of you have used an antibiotic today? How many of you have depended on the existence of an antibiotic today? Yeah. ... Antibiotics are the fire extinguishers of medicine.

John H. Rex

Business Panel Moderator

Heading off the post-antibiotic age

Worldwide deaths from antibiotic-resistant bugs could rise more than tenfold by 2050 if steps aren’t taken to head off their spread, according to Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Fauci, who has warned of the danger of a “post-antibiotic age,” traced the spread of antibiotic resistance to rampant overprescribing, to the widespread use of the drugs to promote livestock growth, and to the relative trickle of new drugs being developed as possible replacements...